Review DVD-Audio Solo $35.00 (Now $45) DVDA Authoring

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doccbst

Member
Joined
Jun 25, 2005
Messages
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My Review of DVD-Audio Solo $35.00 DVDA authoring

DVD-Audio Sole Review: DVD-Audio Solo Version 1.0.0 Build 0535601

This review is an independent and unbiased review done with permission from the authors.
System :AMD Athlon XP, 2066 MHz (12.5 x 165) 2600+
Motherboard Name Asus A7N8X-VM/400
Motherboard Chipset nVIDIA nForce2
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Professional
OS Service Pack Service Pack 1
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)
Optical Drive Properties
Device Description LITE-ON DVDRW SOHW-832S
Manufacturer Lite-On
Device Type DVD+RW/DVD-RW
Interface ATAPI
Sound Card:
Phillips PSC605-Sonic Edge 5.1 Surround
Home Theater Setup-Toshiba 4960 DVD Universal Player-JVC 5.1 Surround Reliever JVC RX-7030 VBK.
5.1 Speakers : Fronts-2 Bose 901 Direct reflecting-2 Bose 141 Full Range--- Center Channel-- KLH Center Speaker --Surrounds: 4 Bose 141 Full Range Satellite Sub woofer---LFE:1 Panasonic Powered Sub woofer also 1-homemade powered Sub woofer as sub woofer/bass from main speaker feeds. and 2 Pyle Pro PHAT6 Piezo tweeters @ 27,000 Hz

Phase 1 review of DVDA-Solo DVDA authoring software--Seems to be awesome program-very intuitive and short learning curve--accepts AIFF and wave (.wav) in multichannel (interleaved)wave and wave format extensible-I have explored channel mapping but still unsure of outcome(I could use some help here) I used both Interleaved and Wave Format Extensible-they seem to have same channel map.I tried 24/48 5.1 and held 17 songs and well ,yes I tried 24/96 5.1 multichannel also, some upsampled and some pure 24/96 5.1 multichannel I had on hard drive(disk only held 8 songs) burned each as .iso- 9660 virtual disc --nice feature for testing this software,and mounted in Daemon tools--both disk played and sounded fine using Power DVD--yes- even the 24/96 disk-regardless of bitrate-also tried using jpeg feature for slide show with each song--very nice-although no menu is featured --next song/previous song seems to work fine in Power DVD--next step is to Burn actual disk and play on Home Theater DVD-A-will post final results later and some helpful links for jpeg use-for now I give it 90% effective due to no menu but for consumer use /conversions, automobile ,etc, is awesome!!!-cheers

Phase 2 -Everything Played on Home Theatre setup-24/96 was especially clear and enjoyable,although this was done for pure testing purposes.Since 24/96 files are so large(without MLP)(only 8 songs for 4.3 G DVD) would be impractical unless a special song or set of songs was desired.
The disk prepared as 24 bit/48,000 Hz 5.1 Multichannel contained 17 songs converted from stereo using DPLamb bidule( My favorite all around conversion method-works great on everything i have tried --fast -easy and awesome conversions)
with a variety of styles of audio-and all sounded excellent-nice separation,full spectrum of frequencies from bass,midrange,and high frequency,bass is adequate and quite thunderous on select songs.
Although menu capabilities are not present yet(according to authors is planned in update later) the Jpeg stll picture slideshow for each song with next/previous feature on remote makes navigation a breeze.
Testing for CD-Rip capabilities was not done because this is for 2 channel as is upsampling.
all upsampling done on my disk was done using independant 3rd party software.
Recording feature also was not attempted as yet(my turntable is on another computer with Home Theatre setup)

Overall-I have to give this software 95%--its just too good and I imagine will only get better-and given the price of only $35.00--(also a free trial)- well- enough said.****!!!!!!!& Cheers to these awesome coders/software geniuses-and thanks to DTS-Ac3 forum
for they are the true conversion geniuses-doccbst

Link to product:

http://www.cirlinca.com/

Links for freeware jpegs and image editing software--(the jpegs for still must be larger than 360 x 240 up to 720 x 480)

http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm

Freeware graphic images-- I used graphic vault-seamless backgrounds-search on this page ,I didnt want to link directly to download without permission.

http://www.davidpye.com/freeware/index.shtml
 
Great news! Thanks so much for the detailed review. The more interest there is in DVD-A, the better!
 
LiveShowCollector---DVD Audio Solo does have a recording feature (can author DVDA using import files,rip from CD,record)which could record live music-at sample rates of 96000 hz and above with the proper equipment(high resolution soundcard and mike) I imagine only records what you feed into into mike-( gap ? )the files can be saved to hard drive while burning disk and enhanced/edited afterward -i havent tested any of this yet-so Im going by help files-the free trial does come with help files and all my e-mails to support have been answered quickly and quite helpful in all regards-give it a try and post results-my next step will be recording from an LP and using upsample feature then converting to 5.1 surround at high resolution(24/48) but my sound card is limited to 16 bits so 24/96 recording isnt an option for me yet.(Christmas Times a Comin)--let us know-doccbst
 
What I want to know is what happens if you "rip" a live cd

Then import the tracks & burn...


Does it play gappless..???

Txx
 
Good question.
Trouble here is that this can also be player dependant. I have had a few players that give a momentary glitch at the ttrack point, whether I have the gapless option in my authoring software on or off.

But we do need to know if there is a gapless option here.
It's looking like a nice piece of software to me!
 
Edited:There does not appear to be a gapless option in rip settings--I havent tried the rip feature due to being limited to stereo and all my efforts and disk are dedicated multichannel--heres an idea Im sure will work tho a little time consuming-- using 3rd party software-- EDIT:Nero does not completely remove gaps-ONLY WAY I Have found is to use EAC(freeware) using Cue sheet method-this will save as large wave file (with cue sheet) wave file then can be edited and loaded in Solo-the tract changing abilites would be lost-and still slight pause is present that could be removed with any audio editor-(Audacity-freeware)I probably would just use EAC to stream copy wave and edit with Audacity-(Its Possible that gapless disk created with EAC and ripped with Solo would retain tract changing-but SOLO may add its own gaps) this could be converted to multichannel 5.1 using Plogue or chosen method- note: 1 700 MB -80 min Cd will usually fit on a 4.3 G as 5.1 24/48-if the size is more than 85%-87%-My last disk( I pushed to limit) from windows properties was 89.5% ( 3.85 GB (4,141,372,234 bytes)) 79.53 Min--IT MAY NOT FIT--or left as stereo if size requires(2 disk set)bitrate calculator from Neil may give exact measure. this would give gapless live performance stereo or multichannel DVDA at 24/48---Hmm --I might just try this just for fun--i still have 4 disk left on trial-thats all for now-Im sure all agree-(a little wordy but Im no expert)doccbst
 
Last edited:
:Downloaded the demo -I assume it is fully functional.
1. Considers all my DVD-R disks unwritable. Is it suppose to be able to burn DVD-R's
2. I am converting my quad - to do so i use Sonar - producing 4 mono wav files. I cannot understand the instructions on how to load these files so that the sound comes out of the correct channel (Diskwelder is simple in this regard). Could someone explain it.
:mad:
 
Ive been using DVD+R so no help there-and also using 6 channel interleaved wave files which solo easily recognised--Under help files-more information for the curious ?? heres what they say copy/paste from file: (the _FR _FL is the key and is mandantory naming for solo to identify and merge tracks together)

Importing multi-channel tracks from a set of mono files
Importing multi-channel tracks into Solo will depend how you prepared them, according to either of 2 methods :
a) All channels are merged into a single .wav file
In this case, simply drag & drop this file from the File Explorer View to the Project View, or click it in the File Explorer View. The import panel will display the number of channels of the audio file, from 1 to 6.
b) Each channel from the multi-channel track is a single mono .wav file.

This method is used by some professional authoring software. To illustrate, let's take an example with a 6 channels track. The 6 mono files are my6chantrack_FL.wav for Front Left, my6chantrack_FR.wav for Front Right, my6chantrack_C.wav for Center, my6chantrack_LFE.wav for LFE, my6chantrack_SL.wav for Surround Left, my6chantrack_SR.wav for Surround Right. To import them in one operation, proceed like case a) and drag & drop or click one file from the set (anyone will do, e.g. my6chantrack_C.wav) AND set the output channel count to 6 in the Import panel to tell Solo there are 5 other files in the set. Solo will determine the root name of each file (in this case my6chantrack). It will then append the right postfix, from the following set {_FL, _FR, _C, _LFE, _SL, _SR} to calculate the set of file paths. Make sure you follow this naming convention. Lastly, Solo will prepend an indicator (6) in front of the track title to remind this is a merged track.

The following channels arrangement is expected :

1 channel : mono
2 channels : stereo
3 channels : FL, FR, LFE
4 channels : FL, FR, SL, SR
5 channels : FL, FR, SL, SR, LFE
6 channels : FL, FR, SL, SR, C, LFE

of course you have to modify for quad 4 channel but I left info as is for all concerned--hope this helps-doccbst
 
I have been playing with this program for a few days..

My goal is to be able to convert DTS 5.1 tracks that are 2.0 16/44 WAV files into 5.1 24/96 DVD-Audio discs..playable on the external DVD-A player..

Solo does recognize and burn onto DVD-R..

I get an error n203 code

The DVD-r does get recognized as a dvd-a disc by my player - it starts loading Group 1 and just hangs..

If solo won't do this, I'm willing to buy Discwelder bronze or steel - not Chrome as it's too expensive..
 
MC Maniac.
Once you unpack the DTS-WAV files you have, uyou will have a set of files that will probably be in 16/44.1, unless of course the DTS payload stream was a genuine 24 bit one - if the disc is a commercial one, then you can be certain it will be.
Actually upsampling to 24/96 is pointless - you'll gain nothing except larger file sizes and a serious compatibility problem.
DVD-Audio Solo will allow you to write a DVD-A with 5.1 at 24/96, but there is quite simply no way you can be certain the disc will ever play.
It's so far off DVD-A specs it's just not funny.
The spec says that support for this is mandated to be MLP encoded due to the data rate maximum of 9.6 megabits per second.
Now, here's the gotcha.
Some players will play a stream at 24/96 in 5.1 even though the bitrate off th disc is 13.8 Megabits/second. Most however will not, and all you end up with is a coaster.

Stick to 24/44.1 - there is nothing to be gained by padding the sample rate unless you are remastering the files. Again, if these are from a commercial disc and not an unmastered multitrack, then you will most likely make things worse as there will have already been brickwall filtering involved when the original multitrack & final master was dropped from 96KHz to 44.1KHz.
Plus your disc will be authored to spec.
The specs are there for a reason - to ensure a compliant standard.

This is a very good app for the money. I just don't see how you can go wrong for $35.

EDIT - There is a 1.1 beta available for download. Lots of fixes & new things.
 
Hi Neil:

Thanks very much for your reply..

I have already made way too many coasters experimenting..:)

Yes the DTS files are 16/44..

I haven;t had much success with them being DTS CD's either - sometimes will play - sometimes not - then stop all of a sudden..

If recording at 24/44 does the trick then I'll glady buy the program..

I'll get the program tonite and try as you advise

Thanks again..
 
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MC Maniac said:
Just out of interest, is there some sonic improvements converting these type of files into 24/96 using MLP with DW Chrome?
Not unless you further process the resulting files.
All MLP Lossless does is reduces the file size - and bit rate - to allow 24/96 in 5.1 to be spec compliant. That is it.
 
I did some more experimenting with Solo last night..

I will be sticking with 16/44 on dts wav files - if I go to say 24/44, I get the N203 error and the last track is just noise..but the other tracks play fine

Overall I'm pleased with Solo so bought it..it's pretty easy to use- and for me that's important..:)

what I was expecting was to be able to take the 16/44 dts wav files and convert them to 24/48 or 24/96 5.1 dvd-audio files

what I got was a disc that the player thinks is a DVD-audio disc but plays the digital dts 5.1 stream..

The nice thing is that you can easily fit many albums onto a blank DVD-R..

This product fits the bill nicely..
 
I d/l this software yesterday. Prepped a 4ch 96K file in Nero, and an upsampled 5.1 file via my Audigy card, wrote to disc. No problems.
Today I wrote PinK Floyd (stereo) WYWH, MLOR and about 6 cuts from
The Wall, added slides but missed a button :sun so no slide show. BTW,
these PF songs were upsampled via Solo to 96K: I agree with Neil in that
there is no point in it except to chew up disc space. No increase in quality
(expected-had to try it).
Also wrote a couple of multi-channel cuts to disc today and used the slide
show, worked just fine as well as the option to display the song title on
screen with the slide changes.
This (DVD-A writing) is all brand new to me, but I think it's just awesome for $35 so I went ahead and bought the program.
Gerald
 
Concerning Cirlinca DVD-Audio Solo authoring software, I successfully use this software to produce DVD-Audio discs consisting of enhanced stereo (2 tracks) music encoded at 24 bit/96 Hz. Original music file consists of following:

1. Ripped CD music track at WMA lossless format; or
2. Downloaded music files at WMA 320 bps or lossless format.

Questions:

1. Please indicate if you believe these enhanced DVD-audio discs sound substantially better than original CD when played on a high-quality stereo sound system with a DVD-audio player.

2. Please indicate if you find stereo superior to multi-channel audio when listening to only music.

3. How does Cirlinca DVD-Audio Solo authoring software compare to discWelder Bronze.

4. Are there any better DVD-Audio Solo authoring software available.

Thanks
 
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Answers:
1. It all depends of your D/A converters; some high-end cd unit do upsample to 88.2 or 176.4 just to be able to use a nicer filtering which give less problem. IMHO, doing a dvda from lossy waves has no sense.

2. No: mch audio, when done well, add the depth that a stereo signal can try to emulate but can't achieve. For sure it's better a good stereo mix to a crappy mch, as it's better a good mono mix to a crappy stereo (case in point: early beatles recording).

3. not used.

4. DVD-Audio can be authored also with Wavelab 5. A plus for WL5, you can use a single file for each channel (or stereo pairs) of the whole album, and place the track change in the editor, without messing with tons of smaller files.
 
For those interested, there is a new version of DVD-Audio Solo (Version 2.0) that was released today! According to their website, thi is a major upgrade and includes many new features. Here's the details from their website:

Host for VST plug-ins, to process audio streams on the fly during export processing.
Converts stereo track to 5.1 (6 channels) surround audio through VST Plugin.
Creates universal DVD disc, playable in DVD-Audio as well as DVD-Video players, with DVD-Video mirror [1] in uncompressed LPCM (up to 24/96kHz stereo) or compressed A/52 (up to 5.1 channels).
Exports project to WAV / FLAC / WMA / A52 / MKV(Audio + MPEG-2) files
Encodes a DVD-Audio track in mixed resolution groups, i.e. Front channels in high-resolution and other channels in lower resolution
Limited support for 20 bits authoring in DVD-Audio
One Click feature : combining the functions of rip-CD/upmix/upsample/group mix/write-DVD in one click.
Import iTune and Windows Media Player playlists
Drop unwanted channels from the imported audio file (e.g. Center or LFE)
Improved dithering now using triangular PDF
Up/Down sampling can be applied to any number of channels with more combinations of sampling rate and bit depths.
Support for PNG graphic file format
Support for multi-core CPUs allowing full CPU utilization, e.g. up to 100% at up-sampling
Read/Write meta-tags for WMA/A52/FLAC files exported.


You can check it out here

NOTE: this is not a plug, a paid or comp'd post, or anything else. I just thought it was pretty cool. (I know there are some of you who worry about crap like that) :D
 
I have been using HD-Audio Solo (Ultra Version 2 - $65) to transfer my CD favorites to 5.1 DVDA-V complete with a slideshow of the album art that I scan to Jpeg. The discs have been playing problem free on my Oppo BDP-83. Double layer discs also play without issues. With precious few new releases of surround discs, this is the best option for me to enjoy the music I like in 5.1.
 
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